


Land of Enchantment

by kmo



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon Disabled Character, F/F, Ladies of Hannibal challenge, Post TWOTL
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-28
Updated: 2017-05-28
Packaged: 2018-11-06 01:37:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11025867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kmo/pseuds/kmo
Summary: After the fall and the dinner, two identically different women find healing in each other.





	Land of Enchantment

Molly sits in the armchair next to her bedside. She uses the back of her hand to brush golden hair out of her careworn face. She fidgets, plucking lint from her dark sweater, oblivious to the brown-grey-black strands of dog hair that cling to her skirt. If Bedelia had been asked to craft the ideal woman for Will Graham, Molly is exactly what she would have designed.

“Fancy place you have here,” Molly offers awkwardly. “Much nicer than where they sent me after I got shot.”

The rehabilitation center in Annapolis is a top-flight facility, private and secluded. Bedelia’s room is elegantly furnished with views of small white sailboats gliding along the Severn; it’s still a prison. “I am fortunate to have very good insurance.”

“When will you be…uh…up and about, you think?”

Bedelia sits up straighter on the bed. It’s the question everyone always asks eventually. “It will take at least three months for the incision on what is left of my leg,” she hates the word _stump_ , so inelegant, “to heal properly. Only then, and only if my doctors deem my body sufficiently strong enough, will I be fitted with a prosthesis. A full year, perhaps, would be an optimistic prognosis.”

“ _Fuck_. And I thought getting shot was bad.”

“Quite.”

Uncomfortable silence fills the room like a miasma and Bedelia begins to regret adding this woman to her visitor’s list. Curiosity was the reason she gave herself, anything to pass the time. These days, confined to this bed and her broken body, all she has is time. “Mrs. Graham…Molly…is there a reason you came to see me?”

Molly fiddles with the handle of her purse in her lap, unable to look Bedelia in the eye. “I...I thought maybe I would see you at the memorial service…”

“I’d already attended one funeral of sorts for your husband. I didn’t see the appeal of attending another,” Bedelia says, words dry and tart, in reference to the events of _that_ _night_.

“Jack Crawford said you were one of the last people to speak to Will before he died.” Molly turns her big blue eyes on her; they seem cartoonishly large. “Can you tell me his state of mind? I’m just trying to understand here…how he could do this.” Big, gloppy tears start to fall. “You know he didn’t even say goodbye to us?”

Bedelia nudges a box of tissues in Molly’s direction. In many ways, Molly is no different than dozens of patients she had seen over the years, the denial and the anger and bargaining mixed into a thick, churning stew of grief, practically textbook. In other ways, she is entirely different; she is the widow of the man she holds half-responsible for her current state. “You realize that your husband’s sessions with me were protected by doctor-patient confidentiality. That confidentiality extends post-mortem.”

“Sessions? Will never told me he was seeing a psychiatrist.” Molly is incredulous at first, then bitter. “He never told me a lot of things, it seems.”

No, he never told her enough, that much is clear. Bedelia sits up straighter against her mountain of pillows. “He may have believed we were simply…having conversations.”

“Conversations about him and Hannibal Lecter? About our marriage?” Molly sniffs and dabs at her eyes with the Kleenex. “I know, I know…you can’t answer that.”

“I’m sorry.” She genuinely is. She is still trying to unravel those conversations herself, rhetorical moves and countermoves, the lies and half truths she and Will told each other, unwinding them backward as if they could provide a thread of escape from the labyrinth of her own making and the monster at its heart.

“He was willing to die for Hannibal Lecter, but not willing to live for me and Walter.” Bedelia is no empath, but she can feel the hard frozen kernel of anger lodged like a bullet in Molly Foster Graham’s heart. She decides in that moment that she likes Molly—and why shouldn’t she? They are mirror images, transposed and refracted through the veil.

Bedelia hands lay limp in her lap, itching for the familiarity of pad and pen, the accessories of her own couture person suit. Lacking those, she defaults to a rote professionalism. “You’re angry. It’s not an uncommon reaction when a loved one commits suicide.”

“You’re damn right I’m angry,” Molly says with a homespun righteousness that reminds her of Will.

“I can’t tell you why Will did what he did and even if I could it would merely be my own very well-educated guess. But I can tell you that death is the only place your husband will ever be free of Hannibal Lecter.” The only place any of them would be free, she knows, a tempting thought that plagues her during the long sleepless nights, leg aching from a phantom pain that can never be soothed. Better to kill herself and deny Hannibal the pleasure. And the meat.

Molly absorbs the weight of her words and the truth in them is heavy for her to bear. Her blue eyes are puffy and bloodshot from tears and her grief casts an ashy pallor over her face, but there is an easy beauty in her high cheekbones and plush bare lips. She nods gravely, once, twice, then squeezes Bedelia’s hand, palms warm and strong, and leaves without saying goodbye.

Bedelia waits a quarter hour, then a half hour for Molly to return before tugging open her bedside drawer and removing the small paper card she has left pressed between the pages of Sappho’s _Fragments_. She traces the unfamiliar masculine printing with her fingernail. A teacher’s hand, clear yet gentle, words written in the soft graphite of a No. 2 pencil: _You can survive this happening to you_. Words she’s only ever shared with one other person. She had spoken them to comfort, but now they return to mock her.

Bedelia holds the card in her hand for a very long time, wondering if she is hoarding this fragment of truth or safekeeping it.

*

Her days at the rehab center have a regimented feel; the well-worn routine comforts her, sped along by her own ambitious nature. There is breakfast in her room, followed by alternating days of strength training and physical therapy. Then a shower, then lunch alone in her room again.

Bedelia enjoys the physical aspect of her rehabilitation, the orderly rhythm of sets and reps and the satisfying clang of more weight being added to her machine. She has lost her leg, so her remaining limbs must work exponentially harder to compensate. She’s always been fashionably trim, her arms femininely toned by the yoga and pilates favored by women of a certain age and tax bracket. Now, her biceps are no longer ropey and slender, but plump and round as an Olympian’s, fattened by chalky whey protein shakes.

Bedelia tackles her workouts with a single-minded focus that she hadn’t known since medical school. Her trainers call her a star, say they’ve never seen anyone more determined. For Bedelia there is no other choice: adapt or die.

The temptation to crush her own weakness is so very strong.

On Mondays and Wednesdays Bedelia meets with an occupational therapist, a tanned, apple-cheeked girl young enough to be her own daughter, ink barely dry on her state college diploma. But she is helpful and kind and very good at what she does and the main reason that Bedelia can now shower and use the bathroom without assistance. For that alone, she nearly loves her.

On Tuesdays and Thursday afternoons, there is group therapy in the solarium. Bedelia does not attend.

Her team of doctors is disappointed in this outcome. They are concerned for her mental health—a day late and a dollar short, by Bedelia’s estimation. Would someone have shown concern for her psyche sooner, before she got swept out to sea by the riptide current known as Hannibal Lecter. She is required to meet with the center’s in-house psychologist every other Friday. He is tweedy and thoughtful and well-intentioned; Bedelia spends her sessions leading him on a merry chase far away from her true thoughts and feelings and he doggedly follows, a hound after a fox. She tells him exactly what he expects to hear—a textbook case of post-traumatic stress, ripped from one of her own patient histories, an army captain who had her leg blown off by an IED outside Fallujah.

She repurposes and appropriates the captain’s trauma as she once did that of Miriam Lass. Her own pain stays uncorked, locked away in the dark vaults of her heart, a vintage so rarefied there is perhaps only one person living with a palate sophisticated enough to savor its complexity. The psychiatrist in her knows a pain unshared makes for a wound unhealed. She does not think she wants to heal; she fears she never will, and is afraid to want and fail and so she does not bother to try.

*

One blustery Saturday when the waters of the harbor are choppy and grey, Molly Foster Graham returns, blowing into her hospital room in a blowsy, tipsy, gale. She sinks unceremoniously into the chair next to Bedelia, close enough that Bedelia can smell the whiskey on her breath.

“Molly,” Bedelia says carefully. “I wasn’t expecting you.”

“I was in the neighborhood. Thought I’d say hello.” She rummages in her purse and pulls out two tiny miniature bottles of Jack Daniels. “You know what the best part is about flying? These suckers. Just perfect for travelling.” She unscrews the top of hers and takes a swig. “Have a drink with me.”

“I really shouldn’t. It interferes with my medication.”

“Well, I won’t tell if you won’t.” Molly pours the entire contents of the bottle into the plastic cup Bedelia keeps on her nightstand. “Cheers.”

Bedelia accepts, never in her life more grateful for the overly sweet taste of American blended whiskey. The rehab center had been a very dull, very _dry_ experience.

Molly goes quiet again; it’s very clear from the slur in her words and the too bright tone in her voice that there are several fallen soldiers in her purse to go along with these. Bedelia, ever curious, wonders at the cause. “Why are you in the neighborhood?”

Molly takes another swig of her whiskey and says succinctly, “Because the FBI are a bunch of bastards.”

“In my general experience, yes, they are.”

“They won’t declare Will dead. It’s been months. I had his fucking funeral for chrissakes—Jack Crawford was _there_.”

Bedelia feels the card in the drawer sing to her. “They never found a body.”

Molly winces, as if Bedelia had reached out and slapped her. “They told me it’s ‘routine procedure’ because ‘the investigation is ongoing’ or some bullshit. Fucking bureaucrats don’t have bills to pay or a son to raise. As long as Will’s still presumed alive, I can’t collect his life insurance or social security. I can’t claim his FBI pension.” Molly buries her head in her hands, rakes her fingers angrily through her dark blonde hair. “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

Bedelia tries her best to soothe, nearly rote after so many years comforting her patients. “Surely there are friends, relatives who would help you make ends meet…”

Molly lets out a harsh bark of laughter, desert dry. “Times like this, you find out who your real friends are. People see me at the IGA and turn and look the other way, people I’ve known for years. At first it was all, ‘I’m so sorry for your loss’ and other empty platitudes, but now…something’s changed in the past few weeks. Now I’m the duped wife of Hannibal Lecter’s Murder Husband…they look at me with such horror and pity. It makes me want to crawl under a rock and die, you know?”

Bedelia reaches out and squeezes Molly’s hand—the other woman’s pain is her own. She has not left her pristine prison because she fears the pity and the judgment of the crowd, those who will see her as weak. “I know.”

Molly tentatively squeezes back, then releases Bedelia’s hand. “Yeah, well, I can take it. But it’s Walter that I worry about. Somebody at school spray-painted _Murder_ _Faggot_ on his locker last week. I’d like to send him to St. Agatha’s…those nuns don’t take any shit. But without Will’s pension, I can’t afford the tuition.” Molly buries her face in her hands, her burden wears on her, drooping her shoulders, and she is bowed under its weight. “I’m his mother and I’m supposed to protect him from all of this—and yet I’m the reason he’s getting bullied, because _I_ brought Will and his darkness into our lives.”

Bedelia feels her own hackles rise at the mention of Will’s name. “Will bears…bore… responsibility for his own darkness. A responsibility he should have been more mindful of when he chose to become a husband and father.”

Molly blinks and for a moment Bedelia thinks she might have almost gotten through to her. But then she frowns, and her bloodshot eyes fill with guilt again. “Still…I had responsibilities, too. Why couldn’t I see him for who he really was?”

“Will showed you…and others…what they wanted to see. He didn’t tell you enough. But you…you didn’t ask the right questions.” It’s the gentlest version of the truth she can offer; it’s still the truth.

Molly nods. “I guess I didn’t.” She pauses, long enough to down the rest of her bottle of whiskey, licking her lips to catch the last drop—she has very lush lips, Bedelia thinks, soft and naturally rosy. “I read your book, _A Heaven of Hell_.”

“Oh?” Bedelia responds nonchalantly.

“Will had a copy—called it the best work of fantasy he’d read since _Harry Potter_.”

“I am surprised Will has read _Harry Potter_.”

Her quip sails by Molly, who is too knee deep in her own memories. “Well, he must have found something useful in it, otherwise he wouldn’t have marked it up with underlining and stars and dogeared half the pages.”

Bedelia does allow herself a smile at that. “And what did you think?”

“That you were a woman who’d seen things…who’d gone on a journey and found herself far away from the woman she thought she was. A woman who knew what it was like to be captivated by a man she didn’t entirely understand.” Molly looks at her with such desperation, with a hunger that shocks her. She threatens to rip aside her own human veil, to cross on over and share her darkness if only so neither of them would have to be alone. Bedelia finds something in her stirring, some weak pitiful thing, aching to reach back.

Molly struggles to her feet and she sways as she stands. “I should get going. I’ve taken up too much of your time.”

“Molly. You’re too drunk to drive. You’re a danger to yourself.”

“I’ll…be fine.” Her reactions are delayed, her speech slurred, obvious to everyone except Molly.

Bedelia snatches her keys off the bedside table and holds them in her fist. “Just stay here. Sleep it off.” Bedelia slides over in her hospital bed in a unconscious invitation.

“Okay. Just a little nap.” Molly tugs off her snow boots and sidles up alongside Bedelia. Within a few seconds of hitting the pillow, her breathing steadies and slows; she’s asleep.

Bedelia’s own eyelids begin to feel heavy and Molly’s body on her left side gives off a pleasant warmth, a warmth she has not known in some time. She smells of whiskey and the kind of laundry detergent that comes in an orange plastic jug, bought in bulk. Her last thought before drifting off to sleep is that she hopes Molly does not snore.

*

In that hazy space between sleeping and waking, Bedelia feels strong arms circle her tiny frame, feels a pool of softness and warmth surround her. A leg slides between her own parted thighs; it feels so good, for a moment she does not remember she is broken. Bedelia decides she is dreaming, and it is so different from the nightmares that haunt her, she does not wish it to end. She squeezes her eyes shut, and clasps the soft creature, her dream lover, close, closer than she ever would if she were awake. A cheek, soft as a peach-skin, nuzzles her own as hands begin to knead her breasts and suddenly she is moaning….

Her eyes flicker open in the grey twilight and Bedelia sees that it is no dream; it is Molly pressed tightly against her in the narrow hospital bed. Molly, whose eyelids flutter, whose lips part, aching for a kiss, which Bedelia impulsively gives.

For a moment…a minute…an hour…tongues and lips and breasts meet and touch. There are sighs and moans—quiet ones from Bedelia, and deep throaty ones from Molly. They kiss and fondle like two teenagers who have just discovered kissing, but aren’t sure what to do next.

It feels good. And Bedelia had not expected to ever feel good again.

It’s Molly who pulls away, shy blush creeping across her face, Bedelia’s lipstick smeared on her lips like a gloss. She rubs the back of her head sheepishly, a child who has been caught doing something naughty. “Um thanks…for letting me stay. I should be ok to drive now.”

Unsure of what to say herself, or make of this encounter, Bedelia gives her a silent nod. Her eyes track Molly as she leaves and Molly blushes hot under her gaze all the way out the door.

*

The next morning, Bedelia places a call to St. Agatha’s School and pays a year’s tuition for Walter Foster Graham. She asks the headmistress to keep her act of charity anonymous.

The boy (and his mother) have suffered enough due to Will Graham’s recklessness.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been working on this fic off and on for the better half of a year and I REALLY wanted to finish it for Ladies of Hannibal, but real life got in the way. But I'm already at work on chapter two, so stay tuned.


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